Miasma
by angato
Summary: Implanted potential is realized. Sequel to Quicksilver and Phage, with references to Borrowed Time as well.
1. Chapter 1

_You should read Quicksilver, Phage, and Borrowed Time before reading this as this story will probably make little to no sense without the context of those stories._

 _As always, I hope to feature brothers, family, and friends._

 _This is not in continuity with the current MCU, so quite a few characters and plots will not appear. For some idea of how the MCU is constantly changing, check out this interesting article:_

screenrant dot com /avengers-infinity-war-setup-payoff/

* * *

Over the intercom, the announcer reminded passengers not to leave luggage unattended for at least the third time in ten minutes. In the gate, passengers milled and sighed, waiting to board the plane. Movement was slow and methodical, the group narrowing to a single-file line as they approached the gate attendant. Tickets slid over the scanner, and a gentle electronic buzz allowed the passenger to enter the door and walk into the plane on the other side of a questionably sturdy hallway.

The attendant took a ticket, scanned it, handed it back after the necessary tone.

"Thank you, Miss Creed," the attendant said as the passenger walked forward.

The passenger paused, tilted her head. Her eyes slid to the side, glanced quickly back at the attendant, who was checking in the next passenger. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to be alarmed by.

She stepped to the side, turned, and walked back into the gate. Other passengers watched her pass with mild curiosity or alarm. The attendant paused in her duties and called out.

"Miss Creed?"

She kept on. She didn't run. Running would make it worse.

"Miss Creed?" There was a note of panic now. She quickened her pace; she couldn't help it. She knew what was about to happen.

"Lynn!"

This from the side, away from the gate. She looked up, to the left. Clint Barton had both hands up, gripping a bow. Aimed square at her heart.

She ran.

Steve and Sif barred her path in the opposite direction. She kept her pace, her backpack thumping against her back with every step. She couldn't beat them both, but she didn't have to. She leapt when she was close enough and sailed over both of their heads, coming down into a roll. Back up to her feet, and back into her pace.

She never broke her stride.

Natasha tackled her from the right, and they went down together in a tangle of frenzied limbs. Both already trying to gain the upper hand, to force the other to the ground. She balled her fist and aimed for Natasha's jaw. Natasha twisted her arm to the side and she punched the floor. The carpet sagged, the concrete underneath cracked from the force. Natasha looked scared.

"Lynn," she gasped. "You need to stop."

"Do I?" Lynn spoke with slight inflection, the barest tilt at the end of the phrase. She reared back for another punch. Natasha squeezed her fist and the electric shock made Lynn flinch. She wrapped a hand around the wrist brace and squeeze. The metal cracked in two.

"Lynn," Natasha said, but Lynn was already up and running again. Natasha panted and held a hand to one ear.

"She's going north," she said.

"I'll get her," Tony replied.

The automated announcer was gone from the intercom, replaced by a man urging all passengers to evacuate the building for their safety. People screamed and cleared out of her way as she ran; her image coated the screens across the airport now. JARVIS' doing.

She could hear them behind her, converging, calling her name. She knew airport security would have the exits covered, and behind them, Bruce Banner would be waiting his turn.

She veered and ran straight for a window. She braced, twisted to put her shoulder forward, and leapt. The glass shattered from the blow and she fell two stories to the ground.

Tony caught her, or she caught him – either way he slammed into her with his suit, and they tumbled through the air as she fought, kicked and tore at the metal.

"Lynn, stop it!" He grabbed at her wrists, tried to wrap a leg around one of hers, anything to restrain her movements. She screamed and punched his side, into his metal stomach. Her hand penetrated the metal. She grabbed as many cords, tubes, metal pieces as she could fit in one fist and pulled her hand free. The suit sputtered and swayed under a sudden partial loss of function.

Tony spun her in mid-air and wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"Stop it, kid!" Tony tightened his arms as much as he dared. He didn't want to hurt her.

Lynn screamed and rammed her head back against his, throwing him off course. He swerved lower to the ground. She forced his arms open with a heave, grabbed the first wrist she could, and flung him over and down, into the ground. He tumbled several feet as she continued forward. She landed in a graceless roll, tucked her arms and threw out a leg. She slammed a foot against the ground and stopped herself. Stood and drew her gun in a single fluid movement, a gun which the metal detectors hadn't seen. The gun he had made for her.

She pointed it at the center of his forehead. His hands were raised.

"Lynn," he said. She stared. The helmet retracted. He looked sad, broken.

"Lynn," he said again. He pushed to his feet, his hands still raised on either side of his head. The gun rose as well, tracking that spot. He was sweating.

Lynn stared in silence. She tilted her head to the side, slightly. She could hear the others coming, closing in. She sniffed hard, once, and looked up at the shattered glass. Natasha and Clint stood side by side. Clint was calling out to her.

She looked at Tony and pulled the trigger twice. His hands moved to block the first bullet; Steve's shield flew in front of him, deflecting the second.

Lynn snarled and turned her aim to Steve. In the same moment, an arrow struck her throat; a thin metal collar burst from the end and surrounded her throat. She gagged and grabbed the edge of the collar to rip it free. Electricity sparked from the collar, seizing her body. She convulsed, cried out. The shock stopped, and she dropped to her hands and knees, gasping.

She looked up at Tony, panting.

"Get this thing off me," she said, her voice low.

"Hit her again," Clint said over the comms. Steve stepped to Tony's side, the two men looking down at Lynn as she snarled at both of them.

"F-"

Her body convulsed again, and she fell.


	2. Chapter 2

_One year ago_

"No, Tony," Lynn said. Tony wasn't listening and she never knew why she bothered, but still. She wanted her protest on record.

"I haven't even asked yet," he said. He grinned and winked at her, and she couldn't stop herself from mimicking the expression back. She rubbed a hand across her face to wipe the smile away. He wasn't fooled.

"It'll be fun," Tony said as he sat next to her. The bench they shared looked over a large ground fountain, active on this hot summer day. Children ran through the water, shrieking and playing happily in the streams. Lynn leaned forward and braced her hands together, a pose Tony recognized in himself.

He sighed.

"And Cap'll be there," he said. At this, she looked at him with raised eyebrows, interest piqued.

"Throwing in the big guns?" She laughed and shook her head, leaning back against the bench. A small boy fell nearby and she started to twitch to grab him; an older man, clearly a father or uncle, raced nearby and scooped the young boy into his arms, crooning soothingly to the confused child. Lynn watched them until they rejoined their family group.

"Alright, I'll bite," she said. She scratched against one cheek. "Tell me."

"Ok, so Foster -"

"Jane?" Tony smiled sideways at the interest in her voice. He knew exactly how to entice this kid.

"Yeah, Jane. Dr. Foster if you presume." She snorted and he shrugged one shoulder. His leg jittered against the bench. She glanced down, then stood and motioned for him to join her as she began walking.

"Thanks, kid." He nudged her with an elbow and she crossed her arms loosely, chuckling.

"You can't stay still for more than a few seconds without going crazy," she said. He raised a hand.

"Don't sell my secrets."

"I wouldn't dare," she said. He looked her over when she took a slight lead, keeping the pace casual. Still too skinny, in the unhealthy way. He couldn't tell her that without pissing her off, but he knew who could. Several someones in fact. If his plan worked, he wouldn't have to say a word.

He reached forward and picked at her hair. "I'm liking the white."

Lynn slowed enough for him to catch up and scowled at him. "Haven't you learned it's rude to touch a woman's hair yet?"

"I don't learn," Tony said with a flourish. "I'm too stubborn for my own good. Pepper says she doesn't know how to handle it."

"You were trying to convince me to come to something." Lynn raised both eyebrows.

"Oh right, right - well how about this." Tony turned and gestured at the entire park. "A full concert, right here."

"What?"

"Concert. You know what that is, right? You go to them all the time."

"Stop spying on me," Lynn said absently. She tapped the pendant she wore around her neck. "It's not polite."

"Give it back, then." Tony held out his hand, and Lynn rolled her eyes.

"A concert?"

"Yeah, that thing you like that I don't know about."

"What does Jane have to do with it?"

"She'll be there," Tony said. "Everyone will be there. We're even gonna try and ship in the boys from Asgard."

"What about Sif?"

"She's stays here more often these days," Tony said with a sliding smile. "Seems she's found a lot more to like here than home."

Lynn shook her head. "What is this about?"

"Foster misses everyone." Tony had produced a bag of sunflower seeds from somewhere, and his statements were punctuated by occasional small crunches. "She wanted to do a little get-together, reunite the crew. She thinks too small."

Lynn felt utterly confused. "Why are you asking me at all? Why not just do it?"

"Well…"

Tony's hesitation continued into an awkward pause, then slid into outright silence. He was nervous about the next few words, which meant he didn't know if he was about to piss her off. Which meant…

"What, exactly, is Jane missing here?" Lynn tried to sound calm and reasonable, but the tightness in the back of her throat was hard to miss. Tony flinched and raised both hands.

"Look, kid -" Lynn snapped her eyes to his face now. He didn't call her that so often these days, since she'd finished her degree - "- when you were uh, when you were in certain company, before we -"

Lynn stopped walking and tightened her arms. Tony saw how her posture changed, ever so slightly curling inside, angling a bit away from him in defensiveness. She knew why he was asking now, but she was going to make him say it out loud.

"Well, we used to have gatherings, see. Get-togethers. It was...well, we enjoyed it. We stopped after you, you woke up, but -"

"But Jane misses it. Which means Thor misses it, which means...all of you?"

Tony looked miserable. "More or less," he hedged.

"All of you?" She insisted, wanting to know how deeply this craving for old times ran. Old times before her.

"I'm ambivalent," Tony said. "Everyone else...well, we don't have many friends outside our jobs, if you get my drift."

They wanted to ask her first because they didn't want to offend her but they did want to include her. Tony was the one asking because…

"Yeah, of course," Lynn said with a shrug. Her posture was no more relaxed, but she smiled. "It could be fun, right?"

"Look kid," Tony said. He had grabbed her shoulder and turned her to face him. He was staring straight at her, daring her to look away, and her own stubbornness forced her to meet his eyes. "You don't want this, you don't want anything even a little bit like this, I'll shut it down." He was intense because he understood. She wasn't the only one who'd had a bad time while someone else's life moved on. She wondered if he'd ever asked Pepper what she did for those months he was missing, or if she, like him, simply pretended it had never happened in the first place.

"That's fine," Lynn said. Tony scowled. "What? You'd let them do it."

Tony snorted and squeezed her shoulder, then let go.

"Just because I'm a bad mentor doesn't mean you get to blame me for things," he said.

"Yes it does!" Lynn hissed and grabbed a clump of her hair, tugging it slightly to calm herself. "That's exactly what it means."

"That's not -"

"It's fine," Lynn said. "It's been five years. At some point I have to move on, and so do they. And if this is what will help them." Lynn paused, then shrugged.

"Sounds like fun," she said. She didn't mean it. He sighed again.

"Whatever you say, kid," he said. "Whatever you say."

* * *

 _Now_

"She's secure," Steve said as he entered the conference room.

"You mean unconscious," Tony said. He sat in one of the swivel chairs, knee jittering, twirling a pen on the table. "We don't know that thing'll hold her once she's awake."

"That cell was made for me," Bruce said from the back corner. His eyes darted around the room, inspecting for exits, always on the alert. Even among friends. "If Hulk can't break out -"

"That is for strength alone." Thor laid Mjolnir on the table and gestured. "Pick it up."

"What?" Bruce eyed the hammer.

"Pick it up," Thor said. Bruce walked closer and wrapped one hand around the handle. Mjolnir did not move. He added a second hand; the hammer lay still. He tugged, strained, grunted and finally yelled out in frustration.

"Physical strength alone cannot account for Lynn Creed," Thor said as Bruce struggled. "There is more at work here." He glanced at Loki, who nodded.

"Why is she doing this?" Natasha had seen the look between the two Asgardians. She crossed her arms and turned to look outside, where the rain clouded the view. " _How_ is she doing this?"

Thor watched his brother. Loki stood silent, his expression troubled. They all waited.

"Thor," Loki said after a long, tense silence. "She is dreaming, and something is making her dreams into reality."

"Dreaming?" Thor looked impressed. "Her dreams are so violent?"

"Yeah." Tony waved a hand from the chair he perched in. "She has panic attacks every night, just about. Or night terrors. Sleep paralysis, PTSD symptoms, you name it, kid's got it."

"When were you going to tell me this?" Bruce looked ruffled and agitated. Tony shrugged.

"She called me a hypocrite enough times that it stuck. Besides, it wasn't dangerous to _us_."

"Until now," Steve said.

"Until whatever happened," Tony said. "This isn't new - this isn't sudden. She's been acting weird for years."

"Weird how?" Clint sat awkwardly on the edge of the table. All of them sat or stood awkwardly, twitching, anxious to move, to _do_ something.

"Weird like Lynn isn't home anymore, and hasn't been for a while." Tony ignored Loki's indignant scowl. "None of us noticed because we're not around her enough, and we didn't know her before. But her friend, Brent, he noticed." Tony looked at Clint. "He called me a week ago."

"One week," Clint said, "and now she's trying to what? Kill us?"

"Why us?" Natasha turned from the droplets streaming against the window. "Why does she hate us?"

"Where'd she get all that shit I just talked about," Tony said. He watched the pen spin between his fingers, his face grim.

"That can't be it," Clint said. Tony scoffed. "No, listen - that _can't_ be it. That's it? That's all? No." He pushed away from the table, suddenly enlightened. "It's something else - something _inside_."

He was watching Loki now, who had begun pacing in a slow path, back and forth. He snarled at the archer.

"It is not I," he began, and Clint laughed.

"I know that. This isn't your style." _Not enough asking and fetching_ , Clint thought to himself. "But you've got something else. I can see it on your face."

He couldn't, and was bluffing, but Loki's irritated expression gave the trickster away. Clint was on to something.

"Stark," Loki said, "that event you hosted - the gala -"

"Yeah?"

Loki hesitated further, not looking at any of them save occasional glances at Thor. But not at Thor, no, but instead to Sif behind him, who had stood silent this entire time, watching Loki's rising anguish with sad eyes. She knew what troubled the trickster as none of the others could; she knew the choice he would have to make, the sacrifice he would endure to grant safety to this realm and those gathered in this room.

She knew that the choice was not so clear as that, and that there was no small possibility that they would all die to Lynn Creed's hand because Loki stayed his own. His eyes when he met hers asked, _Can I kill her?_ And her own replied in turn, _I do not know_.

"I sensed Thanos," Loki said quietly. Thor's eyebrows rose; Tony stood from his chair and was stopped by Steve's hand on his shoulder.

"You didn't say _anything_ -"

"I was uncertain," Loki said. Thor stayed close to his side, present but quiet, unwilling to interrupt or interfere. "It was only a flicker, a moment's time. I thought I might have been mistaken."

"You?" Natasha couldn't help the lilt of amusement in her voice.

"I hoped I was," Loki amended with a side glance at the assassin. "Does that satisfy you?"

"That was three months ago," Tony said. Steve hadn't removed his hand from Tony's shoulder; the inventor trembled with rage. " _Three months_ and you don't say a _goddamned thing._ "

"Would you have listened?" Loki snarled. "You hardly tolerate my presence."

"Communication, you prick," Tony said, bristling. "Talking to people. Telling them important things they should know, _before_ people die."

"Why do you tell us now?" Sif spoke for the first time, her tone calm and reasonable. Tony hissed and pushed away from the table.

"I had cause to doubt," the trickster began. He stopped at Thor's low noise; the brothers exchanged a glance, and Loki clenched his jaw. The effort to speak without devious intent taxed him greatly.

"Very well," he said. "I doubted my own perception. I was...afraid...to acknowledge the truth, and she seemed at ease…"

"Didn't want to spoil the mood, huh?" The slight hint of sympathy from Tony eased Steve's worry, and he released the inventor's shoulder.

"No." Loki watched Sif again, who met his gaze steadily. Her strength fed him. "I felt nothing else, and determined that perhaps I was incorrect. But now, I know I am right." Loki's fingers twitched. "I...apologize...for not informing any of you before this moment."

"Don't strain yourself," Clint said. Loki scowled.

"I became certain only today." Loki looked at Tony now. "When she tried to kill you."

"She tried to kill all of us," Natasha said.

"Yes, but it was her attempt on Stark which convinced me." Loki shook his head. "She would have - if you had not blocked, if the good captain had been a moment too late. It was a killing shot."

"Right in the forehead," Tony muttered. "Dead center. Good job, Nat."

"Never point a gun at something you don't intend to kill," Natasha said.

"She only pointed it at _me_ -"

"That is how I knew," Loki repeated. "She would never harm you, Stark. Not for any reason."

"Apparently she didn't get that memo." Tony sighed his way back into the chair, tapping the end of the pen on the table.

Loki turned to Steve.

"What did you see, when she attacked?"

Steve was surprised to be addressed, but his response was efficient and immediate.

"Fast, cold. She reminded me of…" He narrowed his eyes. "It wasn't her?"

"It was, and it was not," Loki said. While the assembled muttered over his cryptic reply, he gestured at the table. "The recording?"

"JARVIS, give us a visual," Tony said. The afternoon's conclusion manifested, Lynn standing still, hand raised, gun tight, while Tony stood in his suit several feet away.

"Watch her," Loki said. Tony watched the posture, watched her finger squeeze, not once but twice. He flinched and looked away.

"She didn't say anything," Clint said, shaking his head. "Not one word."

"Amma Lynn is fond of all of you, considers each of you a...a friend," Loki said, "but Stark is her mentor. She frets when she disappoints him."

"Sorry, are we talking about Lynn?" Tony sounded incredulous. "Lynn, who sasses the shit outta me if I so much as scowl at that piece of crap coffee spitter?"

"Tony, stop playing dumb," Bruce said. "The rest of us are her friends, but you're the one who -"

"If you say it, I'm leaving," Tony said.

"The point is," Clint said, "Lynn might hold some grudge against us, but you?" He shook his head. "No way."

"Why now?" Steve looked around the room, waved a hand to include them all. "After all this time? We're better friends now than we were before."

"Time," said the trickster. The image in the center of the table had rewound, and focused in close on Lynn's face. Cold, lacking cruelty or hate or any other emotion. Muted. "A great deal of time, to give small grievances and petty annoyances time to flourish, while the power within her grew. She needed to learn how to harness it; her subconscious needed time to be swayed." Loki sighed. "Patience, and time, to create a weapon to destroy you all."

Loki looked at his brother and shook his head.

"He knew, or he guessed, that we would none of us understand. Humans have so many diseases, so many categories - I thought this was the same." He met Steve's eyes now. "Thor is correct. There is seiðr at work."

"Meaning what?" Tony asked.

"It is not panic which visits her every night," Loki said. "It is Thanos."

"Six years," Clint muttered.

"Six years," Loki agreed. "Pushing her, filling her with his ambitions. He would have wanted her to kill you all, but even with how he changed her, it wouldn't be enough." Loki shook his head. "There is something else."

"The reality stone," Thor said.

"The what?" Steve shook his head and glanced at Bruce, who shrugged. Loki rounded on his brother.

"Are you certain?"

"I remember the feel of each stone, the weight and power," Thor said.

"It could not be that," Loki said. "Touching it would destroy -"

"No." Thor met Loki's eyes, and a long, tense moment passed between the two.

"Arrogant fool," Loki muttered. "Miserable oaf. You've no idea what you -"

Steve stepped in between them. "Fill us in please?"

Thor nodded. "When the worlds were rebuilt -"

"When you created the universe, you mean," Tony said. Everyone stared at him.

"What?" he said. "Lynn was researching origin of life crap so I had to hear all about it." He looked at Thor. "A _lot._ "

Thor chuckled. "Very well. Yes. When it first appeared - by my hand - six stones appeared with it which control elements of the universe. These were the same stones Thanos used when he destroyed the Nine."

"And other worlds," Loki said quietly.

"Aye," Thor said. "And others."

"What did you do?" Natasha sounded mildly curious, more interested in what Thor did than why.

"I decreased their power," Thor said. Loki hissed and shook his head.

"Even that would not be enough. No mortal could withstand even a single stone."

"It is not the whole stone," Thor said while approaching Natasha, "but a shard. A small piece, placed here within her." He pressed a finger to Natasha's chest, between her breasts and over her heart. "I believe that over time, Thanos taught her to feed that power, to harness it as well." He looked at Steve.

"She has harnessed it, and with even that small shard of power reality will change around her."

"Her strength," Bruce said. Thor nodded.

"Her speed, her abilities, even her emotions - all harnessed within the dream she walks." Thor sighed. "I do not believe she knows this is realily."

"I am certain she does not," Loki said. "She believes this all fiction, and all of you safe. These are fantasies pushed to the fore by a cruel master, and given direction by his guidance."

"You believe his insanity has infected her," Thor said.

"As it once did me," Loki said. Clint snorted. Tony rubbed a hand over his face.

"Got his claws into our heads," the inventor said. "Clever bastard."

"So what do we do?" Clint pushed off from the table and approached Thor. "You have a plan?"

"We must remove the shard," Thor said. He looked at Loki, who looked away.

"Loki?" Steve stepped closer to the trickster, who shook his head slightly. "What is it?"

"That shard is part of her now," the trickster said. "Integrated into her system. To remove it…"

"Is it possible, Loki?" Sif asked.

"Yes," Loki said. Sif walked to his side slowly and pressed a palm to his shoulder. He glanced at her.

"Will it kill her?" Sif asked gently.

"I do not know," Loki said. She felt the slight shudder run through him, and knew he was lying.

She said nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

" _What do you feel?" He circled her slowly, hands down at his sides. Visible, where she could watch them as needed._

" _Cold," she said._

" _That is what your body feels." He smiled as she shifted away, veering into the circle he created with his movements. The air around them shifted, vibrant with bright blues, reds and greens which swirled in all directions. Her doing, not his._

" _What do you feel?"_

 _The hues dampened. Blue darkened to the color of a healing bruise; red swirled down to the ground, became blood upon the floor. The greens congealed into a form, distant, alluring. She shuddered._

" _Hurt," she said. "Bruised."_

" _Tell me of your family," he said. He knew how she hated the word._

" _I don't have one." She snapped the words out, a spray of yellow bursting from her lips. Her anger was the pale color of billowing fires against the night sky. If he pressed, that anger would darken to orange, deep and surging, spreading around her in a great wave._

" _No?" He paused in his circuit and approached her directly. Her hands were balled into fists; this was surface temper. "No one?"_

" _They didn't want me," she whispered. Burnt orange outlined her figure where once a sallow green had weakened her. Before she had been blues, greens, purples - an open wound demanding an outlet, a weak soul tormenting her own body. Now that sadness was harnessed and spun into the gold of rage. He flicked his fingers through the small rivulets shimmering around her form. The singe made him smile._

" _Why didn't they want you?"_

 _Here, anger fled in the face of confusion. She did not know, and so her mind drifted away from the question, redirecting her attention to a question she could easily answer:_ Who wants me now? _He sensed the change in her, saw the fire leaching into a calm, easy glow. She was tempered, sheathed. She was tame._

 _He tasted the air around them. Vulnerable, but not enough. The anger dampened the moment she thought of them, her comrades in arms, her pack. He needed to dig further, to find the irritation, the petty grievances, the insults and frustrations to build upon. He needed her hate more than he needed her calm._

" _Tell me how you met them," he said. She squirmed under this command, her mind balking as her body shied away. The colors around them swirled reds and blacks in her discomfort and fear. An old reflex, an ingrained reaction. Even here, isolated from all else, inundated with his power, she remembered that he was no friend to her comrades, and she knew that he might use information she gave him against them._

 _He stepped back, physically decreasing his imposition on her space. The reds and blacks blended into a soft pink. She never reacted to the colors changing around her. She couldn't see them._

" _They saved me…" She was hesitant, uncertain. The first sign of a crack from years of effort, of pushing, of patience. He was tempted to press. He remained gentle._

" _Are you sure?" he asked, his voice quiet, calming, full of reason and compassion._

" _I-I'm sure, they…"_

 _All that time, delicately pressing against this point. The years gave way to a single moment, victory in a small, stuttering hesitation._

 _She was nearly broken. He stepped closer and extended a hand, watching her. She did not move away, did not pull back when he gently wound a finger into her hair and stroked the loose strands from her face._

" _Tell me, my child," he said. He smiled kindly, unassuming and close. He had her._

" _Tell me, and we will cleanse your pain."_

* * *

Loki followed Thor through the hallways of Tony's compound, the building sturdy and strong in the face of the inhabitants who lived there. Thor entered his own quarters, the furniture and walls all fortified against Æsir strength and weight. He set Mjolnir to the side, resting among other trinkets and tools which he had forged or been given over the years. Loki examined the objects, and could not stop himself from taking up a bottle of scented liquid. He raised both eyebrows and looked at his brother, who smiled ruefully.

"Jane has good taste," Thor said with good humor. Loki chuckled quietly and set the bottle back down.

"You didn't tell me what you'd done," Loki said. He kept accusations from his tone, though he felt annoyed at this revelation. That Thor had concealed such information, for millennia, and Loki had never guessed at it. The trickster was galled at his own naivety and impressed at Thor's deceptiveness.

"I did not," Thor said. He gestured to the sitting area Tony had provided at his request: several chairs and extended couches with sturdy backs and frames, a gathering place for the type of man who enjoyed entertaining friends within his own quarters. A record player sat to the side of the chairs, which Loki only recognized because Lynn had showed him such a device inside a mortal store. She had asked one of the store workers to demonstrate how the device worked, and Loki had been fascinated by the strength of the sound produced by such a small needle running across a vinyl surface.

He pushed the thoughts aside and sat across from his brother, who was flipping delicately through a box of housed records to see if one piqued his interest.

"You're very calm, brother," Loki said. He saw Thor's cheek crinkle into a smile, and his annoyance grew. "Are you not concerned at all? Amma Lynn -"

"Is contained safely," Thor said. He pulled a record free and began the process of setting the turntable to working. Both Asgardians paid close attention to the process, one to ensure the record and turntable survived his attention, and the other in quiet fascination at mortal technology. When the music began, both leaned back and simply enjoyed the sounds for a few moments of mutual peace, lost in past reminiscences.

"Why did you do it?" Loki asked after a few songs had passed. His irritation was not gone, but had decreased enough that he could broach the issue without snarling.

"The stones were too powerful," Thor said. "I could not risk Thanos' ambitions again."

"He knows what happened before, brother," Loki said. "He has surely seen it within her mind and knows each of your comrades."

"That explains his tactics now," Thor said quietly. "He could not use the stones as before, so his rage is diverted and his weapon changed."

"I believe he wishes to eliminate your resistance before enacting whatever plan he has chosen," Loki said. Thor pursed his lips and shook his head slightly.

"Ours, surely," the thunderer said. "Or do you not count yourself among us?"

"Thanos will not seek my death, Thor," Loki said. "I am still the heir of Death, which he so craves."

Thor said nothing for so long that Loki narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. He braced his arms against his knees, his nostrils flared. His eyes burned with anger.

"What did you do, Thor," Loki said. Thor felt his brother's ire beating against his mind, a sensation he had grown accustomed to in centuries past.

"The accident of your birth will not haunt you any longer, brother," Thor said quietly. Loki hissed and shot from the chair he occupied, pacing furiously back and forth, shooting a snarl in Thor's direction with each passing.

"You fool!" he finally cried, his emotions bursting forth. "You great oaf! And you lie, brother, I know that you lie, for we heard mother when she saw me, we heard -"

"Ragnarok lies within your future still." Thor remained seated, allowing Loki the dominant position for this conversation. Loki continued pacing, though slowed after his first outburst. His intensity had turned inward, where Thor knew he would reach several conclusions at once. He couldn't predict where his brother's mind might lead the trickster, but there was no need to force Loki to speak sooner than he was ready.

Loki's erratic pacing calmed until he once against sat across the Thor, weaving his fingers together. Sighing. Shaking his head.

"Why would you do this, Thor," Loki said. "Why would you change my very nature, when you know my destiny remains." Loki stared at his hands as he spoke.

Thor remained quiet. Loki was not asking a real question. He was venting quietly, thinking out loud. If Thor spoke now, the trickster would bluff away these emotions.

"No one would ever suspect as much." Loki chuckled. "Not from pure, honest, noble Thor. No - I am certain of that. It was why you were the one who had to do it, to recreate everything - but not to change -"

 _Me._

Thor waited. The album had finished, the needle popping quietly for a moment before the automated arm moved it away.

"You think too highly of me, brother," Thor said. "Jane asked if I had changed her at all."

Loki laughed outright. "Mortal confidence is fickle. Amma Lynn -"

He paused, his mood souring.

"We Asgardians," he said after a long, silent while. "What a trio we are, pining after creatures who will be dust long before we see our old age."

Thor smiled. "Do you pine so much, Loki?"

"Ah, brother." Loki shook his head. "Leave me some secrets."

The intercom flickered on the wall above their heads. Both turned with raised eyebrows, and they heard Natasha's voice.

"Hey boys, she's woken up." Loki tensed and glanced at Thor, who stood from his chair.

"Come, brother," the thunderer said. "Into the fray."

* * *

Natasha watched the video playing on the screen in front of her with a blank expression. The dark-skinned woman in the image was small and fidgety. She appeared young, early twenties at the most. In truth, she was close to thirty by now. She was strong, healthy, and functionally immortal - a curse she had once hated. Now...

When she'd first met Lynn Creed, Natasha wasn't certain the girl would survive the night. Now, she wasn't certain if any of them would survive Lynn.

"When I was first sent to them, they sat me down and said, 'we want you to think of this as your home.'" Lynn was speaking to no one and everyone. Speakers fed voices in and out of her containment cell. No one sat in the cell with her; no one stood outside a glass barrier and observed her. She was alone in that room.

Natasha felt the itch steadily growing in the center of her back, and longed to reach and scratch. But the itch wasn't an over-stimulated nerve, and a scratch would not relieve her irritation.

Behind her, Steve spoke.

"What else did they say?" He had his arms crossed, his expression intense. His muscles thrummed with restrained energy. He was ready to spring in any direction.

"They said they wanted me to…consider what it would be like. If they were my parents."

Lynn looked up at the speaker. Her eyes were dark, black in the video feed. Natasha creased her brow. She pressed the mute button on the console.

"Do you think she can -"

Lynn's voice interrupted her and she fell silent.

"I believed them," Lynn said. "I worked...to make them see me as one of theirs. It took a while. I thought, there's no way. There's no way that they'd keep me, when no one else did. But they did."

Tears had started falling, unheeded. Lynn's face was a mask of unbridled pain. Her breathing shook as she drew a long breath, held it, and let it go.

"I told them I wanted to stay."

Lynn laughed and licked her tongue across the inside her cheek, shaking her head.

"It took me two years to trust them, to believe them. And when I told them I wanted to stay…they told me I had to go."

Lynn dragged a finger through the water staining her left cheek. She examined the wetness on her fingers, sighed and shook her head. Tony's voice echoed now.

"Why did they tell you to go?" He was in another chamber with Clint. Thor was in a third, his brother isolated from the rest of them. Loki's panicked agitation had become too great a burden for Thor's comrades to tolerate.

"She had cancer," Lynn said, "and I couldn't stay. I was gone the next week."

The tears continued as she spoke, ignored. Her voice never warbled, never shook. She appeared calm. But her voice began to grate.

"But they kept that knife turning," she said. Her tone dipped and rose, powered by emotion rather than inflection. "Always deeper, never gone. They'd send me cards, call me, track me down. And I…I couldn't tell them…"

She shuddered and closed her eyes. Natasha turned her head away. Tony spoke again:

"You couldn't tell them you didn't want them around you anymore."

Lynn laughed quietly, a short exhalation of breath.

"It was too hard. I did…I did want…but they said no, and…"

She shook her head. Her lip turned up, a smirk morphing into a snarl.

"They never talked about it again."

Now she was hostile. Bumps rippled across Natasha's arms; her hairs rose, standing at attention at the threat they both sensed.

Lynn stood, flexed her fingers. Cracked her neck.

"Amma Lynn, do not -"

Lynn walked through the cell wall and disappeared from sight.

"Shit," Steve said. On the intercom, Tony and Clint, shouted orders to _be on the lookout_ while Loki snarled angrily.

"Can you find her?" Natasha didn't specify who she was addressing; only one of them might be able to work that sort of magic.

"No," Loki said, "as I've told you all before. She will not allow -"

The comms died in a sudden fizz of power. The power surged in the building, the lights brightening to the point of blinding before giving out, spent in one brief moment of unsustainable power. Red emergency lights activated, casting them both in a hazy red. Alarms sounded outside the room. The door remained sealed.

" _Shit_ ," Steve said. He ran for the door and pulled at the metal weight. They were barred in, unable to communicate. Trapped deep below the ground in a bunker designed to keep Lynn safely contained.

"Natasha, help me," Steve said. They hauled at the door together, but the metal wouldn't budge. Distantly, she could hear Thor's hammer swinging repeatedly against the metal of their own cage.

Loki shimmered into view, offering a hand to them.

"Quickly," he hissed.

"Where are you taking them?" Lynn's voice echoed quietly against the wall. Loki flipped around and backed himself toward Natasha and Steve, a target to draw her eye. Lynn stood with her hands at her sides. She tilted her head. The collar around her throat rattled gently. Her eyes flashed to Natasha.

"Take it off," she said. Her tone remained quiet. Natasha watched Loki's fingers twitch, his desire to pull them all out of this place given away in the small convulsions.

Lynn stepped forward.

"Take it off," she said again. Her hands balled. "I won't ask again."

"Amma Lynn, enough," Loki said suddenly. He had clenched his hands into fists to prevent their twitching, and now opened one to gesture at the two Avengers at his back.

"They are not to be harmed," he said. Her eyes flicked from Natasha to Loki now, the snarl spreading from one cheek to the other.

"Amma Lynn, _no_ ," Loki said. His voice was stern and commanding. She stepped closer. "These are your _friends_."

She breathed deeply, quietly. Watched him for a long, cold minute. The alarms silenced in the hallway; the door began to shudder as Thor wrenched at the braces from the outside.

Lynn offered him a hand, her face calm once more. Serene, balanced. Sane.

"Come with me," she said. Echoes of a distant past, separated by millennia. His own voice weaving with hers as she drew upon a memory. Her eyes flashed golden, rimmed with night stars. He was entranced; he was undone. He reached forward. Steve grabbed for his shoulder.

"Loki, no -"

They joined hands, her palm wrapping tightly around his. She looked at Natasha and smiled.

They were gone a moment before Thor tore the door from the frame.


End file.
